The first time I visited Samoa, I was twelve. My grandmother’s fale was in a village on the south coast of Upolu — no walls, just posts and a thatched roof, exactly as I’d seen in pictures.
I remember the first morning. I woke up to the sound of the ocean and the smell of the umu — my uncle was cooking breakfast on hot stones outside. My grandmother was already up, weaving a mat in the early light.
She looked at me and said something in Samoan I didn’t understand. My cousin translated: ‘She says you look like your mother.’
That trip changed everything. I had grown up in Hawaii, disconnected from the village my family came from. I knew I was Samoan, but I didn’t know what that meant until I sat in that fale, ate food from that umu, and felt the warmth of a community that had known my family for generations.
My grandmother has since passed. The fale is still there, maintained by my uncle. And I carry it with me — not as a memory, but as a feeling. The feeling of belonging somewhere, even when you’re far away.